April fuel

I've been most neglectful of the blog so far this month. But I've been keeping up on my own research, playing GH: Metallica, GTA: Chinatown Wars, and Rhythm Heaven. I have to admit that GH:M is much better than I'd expected, and is even making me appreciate the band; 'tallica is more entertaining to play than to listen to, I think. Rhythm Heaven is silly beyond words.

Here are some links I've been not posting all week.

In further Metal news, I see Jack Black is "starring" in a new game called Brütal Legend from the many who brought us Secret of Monkey Island. And speaking of legends, two members of the Blue Oyster Cult contributed to an original song for Warhammer Online titled "Kiss My Axe (While I Drink My Beer)".

Meanwhile, Technology Review asks "Can Video Games Be The New MTV?" My personal answer to this question was, "Wait, what's MTV again?" In a similar vein, something called the World News Network (I think that's where Ron Burgundy ended up) has a piece on "Rock Band and The Future of the Music Industry". Nothing very new in it, but still good to see the meme spreading.

And finally, video games -- and shoot'em ups specifically -- improve your eyesight. It's science!

Next MVGRP-hosted Open Gaming Session this Friday, April 3

This coming Friday the NYU Music Video Games Research Project will host its second Open Gaming Session on the 9th floor of Tisch, from 4-8pm. Hopefully this will be a more convenient time than the last one. New additions to the library include Guitar Hero: Metallica (including double-pedal drumming) and GTA: Chinatown Wars on the Nintendo DS.

Life is a gateway drug

Fair's fair, it's encouraging to see the various members of Metallica promoting Guitar Hero as good for music generally in their SXSW interviews, along with the usual hype around their game coming out on March 29. Examples:

Edge - "Guitar Hero a 'Gateway Drug Into Music', says Hetfield" -- stupid expression, worthy point.
Rolling Stone - "Metallica’s James Hetfield Calls 'Guitar Hero' a 'Gateway Drug': Inside the Band’s New Game" -- ditto RS, which should know better.
Billboard - "Metallica Talks 'Guitar Hero,' Hall Of Fame at SXSW" -- I'm intrigued by Billboard's ordering of GH in front of the HOF.
CNET - "Metallica's Kirk Hammett speaks about Guitar Hero"

Photo from Brooklyn Vegan set.

Guitar Heroics in the news this week

Gametrailers has a good Guitar Hero: Metallica interview/trailer with more gameplay than the usual quick-cut promos on YouTube. Full disclosure: I never had any real love for Metallica. I never detected a hint of a sense of humour in anything they wrote or how they played, which is a wee bit much for corporate metal. Then Lars' bullshit in the early Napster days sealed the deal. So the fact that there are some 45 Metallica tracks on this doesn't really stir my tea. Queen, Thin Lizzy, Slayer, Mastodon, and double-pedal drumming are quite another matter, plus the open drumming with no track to follow is pure win. (Completely hilarious upgrade of lyrics to "One" by MetalSucks.)

Kotaku tells me that EA wants some of this hot music game action. Might Activision, EA and Viacom/Harmonix turn up on music retailer market-share charts sometime soon? There's at least as much skepticism regarding the rock/rhythm genre's future as there is money being thrown at it. Is there actually a shark to be jumped here, or, as I'm inclined to think, will there be steady growth in the music game business overall even if certain high-profile efforts turn out to be epic fails?

And finally, a Wired headline writer rather labors the point with Why The Music Industry Hates Guitar Hero, but the article itself is a very sensible call for Warner Music, Bronfman and his lawyers to chill on the bitching about licensing fees and start cooperating with gamemakers. If it's really true that MTV/Harmonix is boycotting WMG and Warner/Chappell content from the Rock Band online store, the acts that "get it" ought to be kicking up dust. (GH: Bronfman edition pic from Digital Daily link.)

Short calls and long views

Ran into two contradictory headlines on music games over the weekend. The Motley Fool (I had no idea they were still around after dotcom era 1.0) goes with Activision is Music to My Ears, reporting on the Guitar Hero publisher's holiday quarter net profits of $429 million, adding:

The company doesn't break out sales or profits by product line, but it was happy to announce that Guitar Hero III has passed the $1 billion sales mark. Guitar Hero: World Tour was the best-selling console game of the quarter, dollar for dollar. And Nintendo may rule the handheld sales charts in number of units shifted, but Guitar Hero: On Tour collected more money than any other handheld game in 2008.

See a pattern here? So do Vivendi-Blizzard's management, and the analysts following the company. In that conference call, the best-selling PC game franchise World of Warcaft was mentioned 15 times, and the equally successful Call Of Duty 20 times. Guitar Hero got 47 mentions, plus another nine for the upcoming Metallica expansion -- more than even "sales" (27 mentions).

The author also notes that Europe is just getting started on GH and RB, that penetration in Japan is a possibility, and that Activision Blizzard "will live and die with the Guitar Hero franchise."

So it's all coming up roses until I see Music Games Fall Off a Cliff, in reference to a Silicon Valley Insider article titled Guitar Zero: Gamers Growing Bored Of Music Games. The horror! Apparently earnings at Viacom (owner of MTV and Rock Band) are being dragged down by a sales slump in RB, and that Activision is even more poorly placed to deal with the apparent collapse because it was "doubling down" on music games, hyping more GH titles and the upcoming DJ Hero. The SVI piece includes:

We're a bit surpised at how quickly music game sales are falling, but not by the general downturn. Two factors at work here: First, music games sold so amazingly well the past few years the market is approaching its saturation point ... Music games were, basically, a very 2008 sort of fad. And all fads come to an end."

I'm with the Motley Fool on this, and find the SVI analysis to be very narrow. No mention of the suddenly alarming economy and the effect it might be having on entertainment industry revenues; no mention of the massive popularity of downloaded tracks and song packs to GH and RB; no mention of this year's Beatles game, which will grow the rhythm games market to include all sorts of people who hate Aerosmith and/or Metallica; and the fact that music games are ruling the PS2 charts, still the most widely owned console in the world. And these are just the most obvious blind spots. Music and video games are going to continue to expand each others' overall businesses in ever more harmonious and lucrative ways. There's a bigger picture here that post-holiday-season sales drop-offs are not going to reflect adequately.